


By Æsculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea

by voleuse



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-18
Updated: 2004-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>I will preserve the purity of my life and my art.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	By Æsculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers. Title and summary taken from the classical version of the Hippocratic Oath.

_i. Simon_

Taking the job and _accepting_ the job are two entirely different events in Simon Tam's life.

When he finally comprehends that, yes, he and River _are_ going to be staying on Serenity, long-term, he makes a decision.

If he's going to be the ship's doctor, he needs to know what to expect. He needs to know what normal, for his patients, looks like. If he were planet-side, he could contact hospitals, access their medical files, find out what their histories are. On Serenity, however, things are a little more complicated.

He hasn't had to do simple, physical examinations since he was an intern.

It's just another in the long list of things to which he has to adapt.

_ii. Inara_

He approaches Inara first, partly because she's one of the least likely to swear at him for no particular reason, and partly because her perfume reminds him of a girl he knew at the university.

He's courteous enough to hover in her doorway for a few minutes before she realizes he's there, and asks him in with a smile and an offer of tea. He declines the invitation; dithers around for a few minutes before broaching his intended topic.

He's surprised when she stands, abrupt but graceful, and disappears behind a curtain. She returns with a data disk, proffers it with a shrug.

"The results from my last examination," she explains as he stares at the disk. "I trust that should be sufficient for your purposes?"

He nods, and retreats from her shuttle. He returns the disk later that evening, with thanks.

_iii. Kaylee_

Simon doesn't even have to approach Kaylee about her examination. She appears in the doorway of the infirmary of her own volition.

"Hey, doctor." She smiles, a hint of hesitation in her expression. "I was wondering whether you could, um..."

The fingers of her palm spread delicately over her abdomen, and Simon starts, snaps into action automatically.

"Has the wound reopened?" He escorts her to the examination table briskly, turns to reach for the proper instruments, but halts when her giggles catch his attention. He turns warily.

"It's not that," Kaylee shakes her head. "You stitched it up real nice and all, but," a faint flush creeps across her cheeks, and she pulls her T-shirt up to reveal the still-healing gunshot wound. "Will it scar real bad?"

Simon alternates between mentally cursing the lack of proper medical equipment, and mentally cursing the fact that he can't refer Kaylee to another doctor.

In the end, he runs his fingertips carefully over the puckered skin, and pictures it three months from now. He shakes his head. "Not too badly, no."

_iv. Zoe_

He suggests an examination to Zoe, off-hand, and she presents herself in the infirmary accordingly.

She's frank about her history, detailing the whens and hows of the scars on her body, few but jagged.

She's just as fit as her demeanor suggests.

As she dresses, she describes a great uncle who suffered from a wasting disease, but he's the only one of her family that suffered from it. Simon hopes it wasn't a genetic problem, but scribbles her terse words into his notes.

_v. Wash_

Wash's examination is a bit more difficult, as Wash refuses to shut up throughout most of it.

Simon doesn't mind, really, although his sense of humor, such as it is, doesn't hinge upon dinosaurs quite so heavily. A couple of lizard-themed jokes flit across his mind, but his mind immediately stamps them "inappropriate," though he's fairly certain Wash wouldn't mind them.

He manages not to say very much of anything at all.

He's a bit bemused when, later that morning, he overhears Wash ask Zoe if he's losing his "edge."

Simon makes a point of laughing the loudest at Wash's jokes at dinner that night.

_vi. River_

He's already examined her once, twice, twenty times before, but as a matter of course, he calls River into the infirmary again.

She almost skips in, her demeanor entirely different from that which she usually bears when he asks her to stop by his ostensible place of work.

"Know what you're doing," she replies, before he even asks the question. "Like counting sheep, in case one gets lost."

For the most part, he scribbles down what he remembers of their family, reviews what he's gathered from the files he was given, furtively, along with his sister, immobilized in a packing crate.

When he finally turns to her, she reels off a list of numbers, accompanied with explanations of how they relate to her health. Heart rate, blood pressure, brain waves, blood count. She uses a few terms he doesn't recognize, shrugging off his query.

"Words they used. Changes they made." She tiptoes to where he sits, leans over his shoulder, and whispers. "A whole different species, but you wouldn't know it. Iguanas. Sparrows."

Simon isn't able to hold back the shiver, and she hops back, cackling. She twirls, and twirls, and she's out the door and away, her voice echoing back to him. "Rule it all out. It's all wrong, anyway."

And then she's gone.

His vision blurs as he looks at his notes, and for that short moment, they almost make sense.

_vii. Jayne_

"Jayne."

"Yeah, doc?"

"You're not likely to drop dead of disease any time soon, are you?"

"Don't think so."

"And you're not suffering from any new wounds?"

"Nope."

"Okay." The whir of a stylus on a screen. "Thanks."

_viii. Book_

Simon has never seen such extensive tissue damage in his life.

Book's torso, upper arms, and legs are streaked with the remnants of injuries, though only a trained surgeon would be able to recognize them. His skin has been torn, shot, and altogether shredded, and repeatedly healed by a state-of-the-art dermal mender, if Simon's guess is correct.

In these sorts of situations, Simon's guesses are always correct.

"Shepherd," Simon hesitates, tries to find the right words. "How did you--"

"A long story, son," Book replies, "and one that I'm not inclined to tell just yet."

"But--"

"I can," Book interrupts, "trust in your discretion, I hope?" There's a glint in Book's eyes, a solid, immovable _thing_ that Simon's never seen in a preacher's eyes before.

He gulps. "Of course."

_ix. Mal_

It took some doing to get Mal to agree to an examination, but Simon finally settled for the vague threat of ugly, vicious scars should something unforeseen puncture Mal; scars that would turn the stomachs of pretty ladies and innocent children; scars that he couldn't prevent if he didn't know the landscape of the original flesh.

Pragmatic as Mal is, he is, on occasion, vain.

Simon would pat himself on the back if he could, but the captain probably wouldn't take kindly to it.

Like Book's, Mal's body is decorated with scars, though less frequently, and less elegantly mended. Simon can spot the telltale marks of formerly embedded shrapnel, the tracks where lasers burned across skin, and one jagged strike across Mal's thigh, the brand of a laser saw.

Simon can feel the dart of Mal's gaze, the clench of his fists. The captain doesn't like being so exposed, especially when his heart's blood isn't on the line.

Finally, Simon turns away, his hand steady as he scrawls with his stylus.

"We done here, doctor?"

"Hm?" Simon waves one hand through the air. "Oh. Yes."

Mal dresses again, somewhat jerkily. "Learn anything new about me?"

"Sure." Simon musters a grin, tries to look as confident as Mal usually does. "I know all your secrets now."

Mal hesitates, buttoning up his shirt. Then he grins back. "Somehow, I doubt that."

Simon watches Mal lope out of the infirmary, undoubtedly off to do some captain-like thing. He waits until he's sure Mal is out of earshot before he responds.

"Somehow, I think you're right."

It doesn't bother him, though, the mystery that is Malcolm Reynolds. He won't dwell on that, just as he doesn't dwell on the others, not as such.

Simon doesn't know anything about anything, anymore.

But he has a feeling that he'll have plenty of time to learn.


End file.
